heading home
by frustratedfruitloop
Summary: This life she has now, she would not trade it for all the art in the world. Post-ep tag for The Frame Up Job.


Disclaimer: Leverage is the property of Dean Devlin, John Rogers, Chris Downey, and other related names. I borrow for my own amusement.

Notes: Submitted in response to prompt 9 (The Frame Up Job) of 10 Weeks of Nate and Sophie over at nathan_sophie. Unbeta'd.

.

.

The sun is already up when they finally make it out of the Gault mansion to where their cars are parked, carrying their little prize with them. It strikes Sophie that they've been up for more than a day, and yet she's not tired. The discovery of _Ma Mystere_ tucked underneath the fake wall has her flush with excitement and the last thing she wants to do with the rest of her day until the team comes back from D.C. is _sleep_.

"It's not going to your place," she reminds Nate who has unwrapped _Ma Mystere_ and has it propped up against his back car window, admiring it in the sunlight. The amazement is already half gone from his face, in its place, a small calculating frown. She can almost see the gears turning in his head, already anticipating the questions he would ask.

"Give it a week and the rest of the team will have seen it," she continues with distaste.

"Are you sure?" he asks, eyes crinkling in amusement. "I could put this beside Old Nate."

She snorts softly. "You realize Harlan Leverage III is supposed to be three generations older than us? That's quite the May-December romance."

"And now that you mention it..." Nate says, glancing at the painting again, "just how old were you when you modeled for him? You can't have been more than—"

"Ah ah." She shushes him with a finger to his lips. "A lady doesn't kiss and tell."

His brow furrows infinitesimally but he tries for a joke. "There was kissing involved?"

Sophie laughs then because it really is adorable the way he thinks he can hide his jealousy from her. Tugging on the lapels of his coat, she pulls him closer to her and murmurs, "Mm, jealousy becomes you," because god help her, it really does, and presses her lips to his. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, she grabs the painting and neatly avoids the arm that tries to wrap itself around her waist.

"I'm taking this," she says, opening up the trunk of her car and gingerly placing _Ma Mystere_ inside.

"At least I get to see the genuine article everyday," Nate quips smugly and plants a kiss on the side of her head, putting an arm over her waist.

Sophie leans into his embrace, sighing, and they are quiet for a while.

"I was very young," she says finally. "He was in love with me and said he wanted to paint me so he brought me to his house. He had a few pricey masterpieces lying around—lovely paintings, a Manet, several Renoirs. After I modeled for him, I took the paintings and never looked back. I am… not very proud of it."

He was a sweet man. Sophie remembers her time with him fondly, his dark-eyed gaze, his worried hands, always moving, always gesticulating, but so steady when he'd painted her.

Nate says nothing, only squeezes her arm and breathes against her hair. "We all do things we're not proud of."

She doesn't regret it though. It's an important distinction. She regrets many things—William's death, her estrangement from her family—but that summer she spent with Jean Mettier, the summer that catapulted her into art theft, she does not regret it.

This life she has now, she would not trade it for all the art in the world.

"Breakfast?" Nate asks, breaking her train of thought.

Sophie shifts in his arms and traces her lips along his jaw, smiling. "Mmm, yes. All that running about... I'm _famished_. You're cooking. I want poached eggs and toast."

At his groan she raises an eyebrow.

"I've never been good with poached eggs," he explains with an embarrassed shrug. "Maggie used to make them," he shares as an afterthought.

She extricates herself from his embrace. "Well. That makes it obsessive, selfish, compulsive, and cannot cooked poached eggs. I'm starting to think I picked the wrong half of your marriage to have a relationship with."

She's expecting him to frown in consternation after this statement but when she turns to look at him, one end of his lips is curled up in a smirk.

"What?" she retorts somewhat defensively.

"Relationship, huh?" Nate asks, grinning and she feels like she's lost a step in this dance of theirs. She arches an eyebrow.

"Up until yesterday it was 'working together for five years, sleeping together for two,'" he reminds her. She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again, at a loss for words.

After a while, she says, "It's not like you've been very forthcoming with your... _thoughts _about us."

But Nate's smiling at her in the way that makes her heart jump to her throat and whatever she might have wanted to say was lost as he leans in to kiss her.

"I'll have to stop by my apartment for a change of clothes," he murmurs against her lips.

"Don't bother," she says somewhat breathlessly. "You still have a shirt at my place."

"I do?" He pulls away, but grips her hip. "Is this the shirt I spent last week looking for and you denying you had it?"

"Mmm," she says noncommittally and starts her car. "See you in fifteen minutes, darling."

.

He's not kidding about the poached eggs. When Sophie emerges from her room later, barefoot but still in her glittering blue dress, Nate has managed to make some truly delicious-looking slices of French toast. A bowl of his attempt at a poached egg lies in the sink. She resists the urge to laugh.

"Those aren't poached eggs," she says reprimandingly.

He looks sheepish. "I tried?"

And Sophie forgives him because there are a great many things she finds sexy about Nate. Him dressed in a long-sleeved button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tie flipped over his shoulder, holding breakfast, is one of them.

They make their way to the sofa in her living room, where they eat breakfast in relative silence. Sophie props her feet on Nate's lap, and in between flipping through different television channels in search for something good to watch, he gives them a massage.

"Are we really going to meet with Eliot and the others tomorrow?" she groans, feeling the adrenaline drain out of her body with each successive rub. She feels like she could sleep the entire day.

As if on cue, both their phones ring.

"It's from Hardison," Nate announces, and Sophie nods in agreement.

"They're postponing their flight back to Portland?" she says. "What's this about a well-deserved vacation?"

Nate shrugs and types something into his phone, probably a message to Eliot. She sends a somewhat worried text to Parker.

"We did some really cool spy stuff and saved the world?" she reads out Parker's reply. Frowning, she looks at Nate. "What does Eliot say?"

"He says they're fine," he says, shaking his head and smiling. He holds up his phone so she can see Eliot's message. The screen read: DNT WORRY.

She rolls her eyes. "Typical. Someone probably got shot," she quips, although only half in jest. Eliot usually replies with an equally terse WE'RE FINE if the job went well.

His lips quirk upwards but his thumb hovers over the Call button for a few tense seconds before he chooses Cancel. "They can take care of themselves," he says more to himself than to her, looking every inch like a nervous father.

Sophie hides a smile behind her hand and lifts her feet off of Nate's lap.

"So that means we've got a few days off," she says, taking the remote control and his phone away from him.

Nate casts one last look at the phone before facing her directly, raising his eyebrows, amused. "What do you have planned?" he asks with a smirk. "Murder Mysteries?"

Her smile widens. "Well," she turns the television off and puts the phone on silent before straddling him. "We never finished what we started last night…"

His hands settle on her hips, his grip tightening the slightest bit as he tries for a kiss. She pulls away at the last second. Nate's head falls back on the sofa. "C'mon Soph," he groans, already knowing her game.

Laughing, she leaves him there on the sofa, padding barefoot towards her bedroom. When she's at the door, she leans back. "I don't have all day Nate," she calls and disappears inside.

He follows seconds later. (He can never refuse her, especially not when she's in a playful mood like this.)

The moment she feels him step into the room, she lets her dress fall away from her shoulders and pool silently at her feet. She's wearing nothing else. Her body is half-turned towards him, mimicking her pose when she modeled for Mettier. She loves the way his eyes widen and dart to and fro the painting she's set against the wall and her bare back, the swell of her breasts, loves the way he nervously licks his lips.

He takes a step forward, swallows, but when he speaks, his voice is still dry. "Are you trying to kill me?" he asks jokingly

She waits until he's close enough before whispering, "Maybe," with a wicked smile before she tugs on his tie and crashes his mouth to hers.

"Pity," she mumbles against his lips in between frantic, open-mouthed kisses, her hands working on the buttons of his shirt as he runs his over her body. "We left the cuffs with Sterling."

Chuckling, Nate drags his lips over her neck, pushing her towards the bed until they fall into it with very little grace. His name is a frustrated whine on her lips when he holds her hands above her head as he tries to gain control of the situation.

"We may not have cuffs," Nate says and moans when she rolls her hips into his. "But we do have this…" and he releases his grip on her hands and starts to loosen his tie.

Sophie stops struggling and her eyes darken further.

"Why, Mr. Ford," she whispers breathily in an accent she knows drives him crazy. "I approve entirely."


End file.
